1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processor for generating printing data to be transmitted to a printing device, a method for processing information and a memory medium, and more particularly to a technique for composing one print job by a plurality of print requests in a host computer.
2. Related Background Art
Conventionally, in the case where one document (document data) generated in an application is printed in the host computer, a set of print setting attributes composed of a plurality of print setting items previously set by a printer driver has been ordinarily defined for one print job generated from the document.
There has been known software having a “collective printing” function by which the document data instructed to be printed by the application is not outputted to a printer and held in a client, that is to say, a host computer and a plurality of document data is simultaneously transmitted to the printer as one job.
In the case where a user has hitherto wished to simultaneously print the print jobs generated by, for instance, an application A suitable for preparing documents, an application B suitable for preparing charts or tables, an application C suitable for preparing drawings, etc., however, the “collective printing” function has been disadvantageously inferior in its maneuverability, because the “collective printing” function only serves to collect a plurality of print jobs together to one print job, and, because upon printing data, the data is outputted in regular order according to which the data is spooled for the collective printing in response to the instruction of collective printing, so that the user must spool the data on outputted pages. For instance, in the case where the user wishes to print data composed of a document, a drawing, a document, a table and a document each of which is written on one page, the user has inconveniently needed to prepare a first page by the application A and spool it, prepare a second page by the application B and spool it, prepare a third page again by the application A and spool it, prepare a fourth page by the application C and spool it and prepare a fifth page by the application A and spool it.
Further, in the case where the user wishes to see the preview of data collected together as one data to be printed, the user can see the preview provided by each application, however, it has been impossible for the user to see the preview based on a plurality of print settings set by the printer driver.
Still further, in the case where the user wishes to put a plurality of files together and print them as one print job, when the user tries to carry out a designation of finishing relative to the print job thus obtained, there is no means for providing the designation of finishing relative thereto. There is undesirably provided no means having a preview function either. Therefore, unless the user prints the data, the user cannot disadvantageously understand how the data is actually printed and outputted by the printer.
Still further, in the case where the “collective printing” is employed to use a page layout function (N pages/sheet) in a device side, the same page layout processing can be carried out relative to a plurality of jobs, however, the print jobs cannot be combined together while a different layout is applied to each of the original print jobs.
As described above, the conventional “collective printing” only functions as a continuous printing, and therefore, one print job cannot be prepared by using a different layout for each page.
Further, as described above, according to the prior art, only one page layout can be provided for one job. Therefore, in the case where one job is formed for the collective printing, the user cannot designate the page layout when the print jobs are previously outputted from the applications for the collective printing, that is to say, printing the print jobs in one lot, so that the user has needed to select only one page layout upon collective printing.